The motion to remove the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeoldid not go ahead this Saturday in the country’s National Assembly due to the ruling party’s boycott of this measure.
The initiative presented by the opposition to disqualify Yoon for having declared martial law last Tuesday was voted today by only 195 parliamentarians out of 300 that make up the chamber, an insufficient number for the result of the vote to be considered valid.
For the motion to be approved, at least 200 votes in favor of the total of 300 seats were necessary. The votes cast, which were anonymous and whose results were never recounted, indicate that only three deputies of the ruler People Power Party (PPP) participated in the initiative, joining the 192 opposition parliamentarians who promoted the measure to unseat Yoon.
The president will continue in this way in power despite the political and social outcry against him, after he unexpectedly declared martial law on Tuesday night, plunging the country into chaos, and was forced to withdraw this measure just six hours later due to another vote in the Assembly, where the opposition has the majority.
The failed motion to impeach her came after a vote on another proposal to establish an investigation into the first lady, Kim Keon-heefor alleged corruption, which also did not go ahead as it did not reach the necessary two-thirds of the support, which already pointed to the failure of the initiative to disqualify Yoon.
Almost all of The PPP deputies left the chamber after that first votewhich left a large part of the benches empty and motivated several calls from opposition politicians to those of the ruling party to participate in a vote that they described as “of historical importance.”
The extraordinary parliamentary session took place in a tense atmosphere, with repeated angry exchanges between opposition and liberal deputies Democratic Party (PD) and the PPP.
After taking several lurches in the previous days, the PPP established voting discipline today to achieve boycott the attempt to oust the president of his position.
In turn, the leader of the ruling party, Han Dong-hoon He stated that he will seek an “orderly exit” from power for the president, after his party’s boycott of the motion of censure, where he also reiterated his previous position according to which the resort to the state of emergency represented “a serious and clear violation of the Constitution”.
For this reason, the PPP “will press for an orderly departure of the president with a view to minimize chaos“Han said in statements to local media at the National Assembly after today’s extraordinary session.
The head of the conservative party added that it will carry out consultations with the Democratic Party so that the aforementioned process is carried out “in a predictable and transparent manner.”
Yoon” will be in practice stripped of its functions until he leaves office, and the prime minister will assume state functions in consultation with the party,” Han added.
His statements today came after Yoon apologized “for causing concern and inconvenience to citizens” with his martial law, in a speech in which he also said that he left in the hands of his party “the stabilization of the political situation, including his mandate”.
While the parliamentary vote was taking place, some 149,000 people -according to police data- they gathered in front of the Assembly to demand that Yoon resign from his position or be dismissed.
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